Issue #151 : On The Trail
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Joey glared up the length of the rural road and wondered again why he bothered staying with the campaign. He glared down at the frayed pieces of literature, the edges fluttering in the warm breeze. It was like devoting your life to accomplishing nothing. The election was still so far off, it was getting harder to really see the point of any of it.
Every house ended up being a slight variation of the same conversation, regardless the specific issues. No sir. My candidate actually agrees with you. Ma’am, believe me when I say that will almost certainly be a central piece to my candidates platform. You don’t have to be worried about us. We are on your side.
Insert thumbs up here
It was the same bullshit, every two years, regardless of what campaign he happened to to talk his way into. If it weren’t for the fact that he needed a job, there would be no way he would ever sign himself up for this kind of abuse. No one wanted to listen to him, he was the personification of everything that was wrong, or things that were going to be wrong. His only friends on trips like this were the upraised palm and the slammed screen door.
He took a long drink of water and looked again at the small house. He had been watching it for the past 20 minutes as he approached on foot, at what felt like less than a snail’s pace. Maybe this one would be different. The absurdity of the notion made him laugh. The only thing that ever changed was how close anyone came from straight out telling him to fuck off.
Stepping up onto the tidy porch, he pressed his finger to the doorbell, listening to the beautiful sound of chimes within as they resonated throughout with symphonic purity
The sound went on for so long that he didn’t hear the steps approaching, but as the door was pulled open, the young woman standing within made him immediately feel a fluttering in his stomach. He realized that he was already almost stammering on the inside.
She stared back at him patiently, the spaghetti straps of her sun-dress threatening to slip off of one shoulder. He found himself torn between wanting to reach out to rescue it and still remaining respectful.
Finally she laughed, a light sound that filled him with a warmth that he hadn’t known before. “You do know that you haven’t asked me anything yet, right?”
“Uh…” Her accent threw him off, more Southern than anyone he had met on this trip so far. “Sorry, what?” It was all he could think of to articulate his question.
She nodded at his bag which had already slipped his mind. “I’m assuming you want to talk to me about your candidate?”
He had forgotten what candidates even were. All he could think about were those curves, lifting that dress up over her head and laying her down onto the couch to explore that body.
“Is everything okay?”
He heard the sing-song in her voice, saw the inviting glow of her skin but couldn’t even remember how to manipulate his mouth into speech. How was he supposed to tell her how he really felt? Would she accept him? Would she return his feelings?
“I’m sorry.” He finally found his voice. “Sorry, I guess I’ve just been out walking in the sun for too long. I was wondering if you’ve given any thought to the upcoming—”
“Oh, well you should come inside then, cool off for a minute.” She said this as she opened the door for him to come in. It was hard to deny or resist the cool breeze that wafted out from the house, carrying with a just a touch of her perfume. He was a slave to those sensations as he allowed her to lead him in, sensing the stupid grin on his face. He watched the thin fabric of her dress as it slid up her thighs and felt her smirk as she glanced back at him. It was a look of such invitation that he knew could lead nowhere good.
Time slipped away.
He saw her, losing himself in those eyes and within her. The softness of her body was on him and in him, the weight of her breath on his ear as it became more frantic, rushing towards the edge of the release they both desired.
Joey blinked and realized that he was seated on an ornate glider, the back and forth motion already starting to make him feel sleepy. She was walking in from the other room, buttoning up her shirt. He caught himself watching as the shirt pulled tight around her, the quick glimpse of the curve of her breasts before they vanished behind the buttons and the shirt slackened around her.
When he looked up, she was staring into his eyes with the biggest trouble-maker grin he had ever seen. Before he could stand up, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down, kissing him softly at first, the pressure from her lips increasing as she took hold of one of his hands and brought it up to what he had just been gaping at moments earlier. Her breath caught as she he squeezed and broke the kiss. He began to wonder how long he had been there.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she walked off towards the kitchen.
This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. He didn’t even know her name. Frantically he pulled the list from his bag and began scanning down with one finger.
Her address wasn’t there.
She probably just wasn’t registered as a voter. Taking out his phone, he looked up the address. It didn’t take long to find it. What took longer was his ability to accept what he was seeing, to realize where he was sitting. His entire body went numb as he read through the articles.
The fire had happened nearly fifty years ago.
No one knew what had started it, but reports were that the wife had been having an affair and that the husband discovered the two of them. Joey’s breath stopped as he gaped at the thumbnail pictures in the story. The husband looked like a bruiser, someone who could take a person apart with his bare hands. Then the picture of the wife. It was grainy, but even in black-and-white was easily identifiable.
It was the woman who was now in the kitchen .
Joey made to stand up but she was suddenly in front of him, her hand was on his shoulder, pushing him back down. There was now a smell of rot in the air, the skin on her hand and arm black and blistered from being burned, like some kind of alien skin. He heard her true voice as she spoke.
“Welcome home darling.”
It was a voice of mockery, daring him to do his worst, to put him to the test. He started to respond but quickly realized that she hadn’t been speaking to him, but was rather hoisting him up as a prize for the person who had just arrived. The floor trembled underneath them as the door was thrown open in a howling wind of fury and rage.
The husband had come home.
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